Grace sailed into New York harbor on the unlovable Saturnia — one of three ships arriving that day, bearing some 3,000 passengers from Europe, her customs agent said. He also told her the Ohio State Ltd, leaving at 4 p.m., would bypass Cleveland and thus be the fastest way to get to Springfield. She headed to Grand Central Terminal.
Grace collected her children from her no-doubt-relieved in-laws and drove us to her mother’s apartment in Dallas. We would live with Grandmother until Jim returned — a date not set. What would happen after that, nobody knew. Meanwhile, Grace would enroll the older two in school, I’d stay with Grandmother and Grace would go to work. Assuming she could find a job.
Her letters to Jim blend the routine with notes of tenderness and, toward the end, unsettlement.
A September 22, 1951, letter to a shipboard friend encloses photos that “bring back our good times on that terrible boat. All I have to do to get away from the pressing demands of buying school supplies and new shoes, cooking and washing, is to look at these pictures and go floating back to our ship and smell the good air, watch the sea (calm and blue) and recall all the pleasant, diverting experiences with my boat friends. I thank you most sincerely for being so kind to me, especially for making my surroundings more enjoyable by ‘moving me up in life’ from that hot little hole down below.
“I am looking for a job now and will have to find something soon since my money is running out. The children are settled in school, but each day it seems I have to buy further supplies or new shoes or such like. But we love Dallas and are glad Mother moved here from Houston.”
October 1951 letter to Jim: “You certainly have been wonderful about writing. It does me so much good to find that what you are doing is interesting and rewarding.” She reports that “there were around 40,000 people in the Cotton Bowl last night to hear Dr. Norman V. Peale. His address was lukewarmly challenging but rather trite. I’d much rather have heard Pierre Van Paassen who preached at the 1st Unitarian church yesterday morning. I couldn’t think of any way to take the children and Mother to Sunday School and then go myself clear across the city and come back for them to boot, so I didn’t go.
“Last night as we walked out of the Cotton Bowl amid the throngs of people, into the bright lights of the state fair with the hamburger and candy floss smell, I wished very much that you were there. Then, I knew, we wouldn’t have gone immediately to catch the trolley but would have turned instead to the bright lights of the Midway and walked its long length, stopping whenever anything of interest caught our eyes.
“It’s ten to eleven now; over there it’s nearly 3. It’s hard to move across that much time, isn’t it? Have you had any good chocolate yet? And tell me in some detail about Dr. Jaspers and Karl Barth. We love you and miss you but we are glad you are doing what you want to do.”
November 1951 letter to Jim: “I know you are curious to know what I do in a firm named Nationwide Pictures. The ad appeared in the Dallas Morning News asking for a ‘Mature woman, 30–40, to manage office of motion picture production firm; typing necessary. Knowledge of books, art, music, radio, TV, etc. helpful.’” Her new boss, Mr. Carrington, “is the cameraman for Warner Bros. and Universal Newsreel for this area. He has recently bought a trailer service which makes movie advertising trailers, and this business has started in earnest with the Christmas merchants’ trailers which are being pushed right now. We are getting out around 2000 letters to theater managers all over the south.
“So I have a job partly routine, partly creative, and I like it. He paid me $35 a week to start, when I persuaded him he needed help to clear his desk of some of the pile of work which he had accumulated. At the end of that time he told me he was ‘used to me, liked my work, I was lovely to have around, so stay!” He will now pay me $50 a week, with possible increases if this Trailer Co. proves a good thing.
“I work from 9 to 5, Saturdays to 12. I like the interest, the difference and the money. I am glad I am doing this instead of the Presbyterian Bookstore because I was rather tired of the same thing. This will satisfy the wicked streak in me for something exciting and different and pleasure-loving, maybe! The movie business is certainly different from the cloistered world of religious books, I can say that.” Hmmm…
December 1951: Dearest Jaimi, “I have gotten steadily deeper and deeper in the business. I like the work in almost every way and as far as the salary is concerned, they’ve raised it twice already and will do more, I really believe, as soon as the business warrants. I feel responsibility to it now that they have been so nice and even though I will have to leave sometime, still I can help them get the thing on its feet and going.” On the streetcar, she thinks about contributions she can make. “For example, some Special Trailers are rather rude sounding and say things like ‘The Manager insists that you be QUIET.’ Why not do it more diplomatically, I thought, and so I’ve been writing jingles, which we will illustrate with sound and animation effects.”
Then this momentous shift of topic: “Your nice long letter awaited me when I got home after the conference at First Church. I like everything in it and am so glad you don’t feel as hopeless as you did several places in Europe. I certainly agree that it’s not just on your side — I know mine has caused a lot. But heretofore, unless my memory has failed me utterly, you’ve never even admitted that it was anyone BUT me! I know the children can help us somewhat; but I really hope our own relationship can be better basically.”
March 1952, letter to Jim’s parents: “Since he’s left Basel, we may not get any more letters until he lets us know when he’s coming, as I hope he will. I don’t want the children to miss the thrill of meeting him somewhere, however he plans to come to Dallas. Doesn’t it seem wonderfully immediate to think he’s ‘on the way home’ even if it is still a matter of weeks? We are all so excited at times we can hardly be nicely calm.”
A few days later, on the back of a Nationwide Pictures flier, she typed the kind of note-to-self she used to do more often:
Self-Conscious
Being easily annoyed, or insulted or embarrassed is usually an indication of self-consciousness.
After all, nothing which occurs in the course of a day’s work need be taken ‘personally.’
Every unpleasant occurrence is only part of our regular ‘day’s work’ — to be glossed over pleasantly, and promptly cast from our memory.
There, let us not have our ‘feelings’ too prominently evident.
The next letter is dated six months later and comes from Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Jim is now pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. The file has no record of when and where Jim arrived for us to greet him, or what transpired during what Grace later called the period “while we were sitting out our time in Dallas.”